


Taking the Darker Path

by Tallulah



Category: Battle Royale (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Choices, Gen, Morality, Vignette, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 20:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17270864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: Eight moments play out differently. Eight people choose to play the game.





	1. Kaori Minami

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12daysChristmas on LiveJournal, prompt "Eight lurking monsters". Each chapter is intended to be separate rather than a whole alternate game.

Kaori doesn’t notice exactly when it is the shooting stops. For ages it was all really loud and her ears were ringing, like cheers at a concert. Like, Hirono would shoot at her – she felt the bullets pinging off the walls above and around her, a few specks of concrete and wood flew out, she tasted them – and then she’d shoot back, and she knew she should be frightened – not long ago she was frightened? – but now the sun was out and, and the way Hirono kept shooting made her sound scared instead, like she was panicking. 

Kaori’s never seen Hirono panicking before. Even back in the classroom – she looked sick and freaked out like everyone else but Kaori could see the sharpness in her face, the way she looked round at everyone, you could see she was thinking how easy it would be to kill anyone she wanted to. Did she look at Kaori, did she mouth _you’re dead_ , did she smile and draw a finger across her throat? Probably. She’s done that kind of stuff a lot, she and Mitsuko and Yoshimi, one of them would look at the others and smile and then they’d all look at Kaori and she’d know they were going to do something awful just because it was _funny_ – 

That’s it, that’s the thing, it’s all all right if you can find it funny.

She’s thinking all this, or she’s thinking about thinking it, and then she realises all she can hear are the thoughts. She holds up her gun and she risks glancing round the corner and there’s nothing but the sun and the smell of wood and a few birds, some distance away. Hirono’s, Hirono’s not there? Maybe she’s _coming round from behind_ maybe she’s _sneaking up_ maybe –

Whirling round but behind her there’s just the side of the building and a dusty path and straggly grass and nothing, nothing else, just the sun and her thoughts and, it tastes like blood in her mouth but that’s because she was biting her lip, that’s all it means. 

She waits a little longer but Hirono doesn’t show up. 

She’d show up, if she were planning something. She doesn’t wait. Mitsuko waits. Mitsuko stared Kaori out for two days once before cornering her in the bathrooms. Hirono doesn’t do that. Hirono comes up to you at the end of class and breaks your stuff or takes your money. Yoshimi doesn’t do anything without one of the other two. Mitsuko wasn’t here, Kaori would’ve known. The shooting’s stopped, it’s just the cheering in her ears.

She wanders down the bank, over to the building where Hirono was hiding. 

Hirono’s still hiding but she’s not doing a very good job of it any more. 

Kaori stares at all of the blood – there’s quite a lot, bright red, soaking the dusty ground – Hirono’s hand still clutching a gun, her fingernails painted chipped pink, Hirono just lying on the floor with her skirt rucked up and a look on her face like, _What happened?_

Like the bad poking kitty. _Bang_ and they just lie there with that stunned face.

_They’ll know!_ Junya is saying from her locket. _They’ll know! They’ll tell on you_

Kaori thinks, Kaori thinks maybe it isn’t so bad if they know, not any more.

And Hirono started it.

She yanks at the gun and snatches it out of Hirono’s hand.


	2. Tatsumichi Ooki

When Tatsumichi stopped running – his legs were aching and he couldn’t get his breath back, so maybe he was a little freaked out, _maybe_ –

He stopped running and he fumbled in his kitbag and dragged out this, this massive fuck-off sword-knife thing. No. Machete. He remembered the name from some news report. Some guy had gone batshit crazy in a shopping mall with one once.

He hadn’t thought about this. He’d been like _maybe a gun, please god maybe a gun_ , you could point guns at people and tell ‘em _stop or I’ll shoot_ , and then if they didn’t stop then how hard could it be to pull a trigger? Just like a video game –

Or, like, maybe something useless, maybe they’d be like _fucking new kid, give him a beanbag or something_ –

Last night, after he stopped running, he was thinking, _can’t just run up to someone and chop their head off, can’t just do that like it’s a swing at baseball_ – not _can’t_ like _it’s wrong_ (it clearly wasn’t wrong, otherwise why the hell they’d have brought him here and given him a fucking machete?) but _can’t_ like _no one just does that, what if it goes wrong_ , _can’t_ like _don’t quite believe it’ll work_ , like _people don’t die that easily_ –

That was all last night.

Turns out when it’s two against one and you realise no one’s gonna give a shit about you because you’re the new kid, turns out when you stumble across someone else and it’s do-or-die time, turns out you _can_.

He didn’t even cut Nanahara’s head off, just kind of chopped him with the machete like he was giving him a _stupid!_ rap on the head, only it was a lot, a lot crunchier than that. A lot. Turns out people do die that easily, or, at any rate, their faces end up looking really fucked up, even with just one little swipe (okay, it wasn’t little, he put everything he had into it, it was _do or die_ –)

He should have thought about this a bit more because Nakagawa stared at him, and at Nanahara, and then she turned and started running, and he ran after her, he wasn’t gonna let her get the jump on him, and he caught up with her because his legs were longer, and now it was one against one and she didn’t have anything in her hands, no weapon, and she’s short and skinny and there’s no way she can beat him in a fight, she’s looking behind her as she runs, tears pouring down her face, nose running, she can’t do a thing to him and she’s a girl, you don’t hurt girls. He should’ve thought about all this before. Now he’s wasting time –

Like, he knows what’ll happen this time –

Her breath, rasping and full of sobs –

It’s do or fucking die –

He kind of tries not to think about it as he does it. He takes a swing at her and he hits her in the side of the neck with a smack like someone tenderizing beef. It sends her right off her feet and then she’s lying there, still twitching, one hand still reaching to push herself up and it still does it even as all the blood pours out of her. Like a slasher film.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s not enjoying this. 

He’s not really anything about it, he’s just done it and that’s what it is. There’s no point in thinking about it.


	3. Satomi Noda

Satomi is trying to think. She’s normally very good at thinking. But there aren’t any thoughts, there’s just, there’s just the echo of gunshots, and the smell of them, and the smell of, of blood. Quite a lot of blood. 

Standing in the kitchen with –

She’s crying, because she can feel tears oozing down her face, but she’s smiling too, because it hurts. Which also doesn’t make any sense.

What –

What are you meant to do when –

She’s normally quite good at knowing what to do, isn’t she? What to write in essays or which bit of homework to do first or how to manage her time in an exam. What to say and what not to say. It was, it was just, the Program starting at one a.m., it fucked up her sleep schedule, she has to be careful, you can’t think straight if you’re sleep-deprived. All the exams she ever scored average on were because she’d been too worried to sleep the night before. 

She didn’t, she didn’t consider Yukie’s suggestions carefully enough. She was scared and someone saying _it’s okay, we can beat this together_ was too tempting. She should’ve appraised it analytically (how was it ever going to end up any differently from what it has? Even if Yukie didn’t turn on them, someone else would’ve have done, it wasn’t necessarily going to be her, it’s just it turned out that it has been).

You _have_ to know what to _do_. She’s never liked people who just… fall apart. Like everyone just did. Chisato just pointed a gun at her head. One of the others tried to poison everyone. Yukie was probably going to keep the democracy bullshit going until the end and then turn on them at the last minute. Haruka was screaming _kill the bitch_ just thinking about herself. Yuko had fallen apart long ago, before all this, Satomi probably shouldn’t have pulled the trigger on her but Yuko was there, screaming, and Satomi watched herself do it –

No, she wanted to do it –

No, she didn’t _want_ it but she didn’t really know what else to do –

And, okay, she didn’t want to, but she’s done it, and the sky hasn’t fallen in, everything’s okay, if you count _okay_ being _not dead_ which is a pretty good definition when you’re in the Program. 

(Pulling the trigger and people going up in sprays of blood like fireworks, it’s not something you ever wanted to see but it makes you feel like they’re different from you, like they’re made of something different from you)

And that’s, what, (come on, you’re supposed to be smart), that’s (okay, do the counting later) that’s actually a lot of the others dead now. If all she has to do in order to go home alive is to, to pull the trigger like that a few more times (seven?) And most of those are probably – no, who are definitely playing and at least some of them weren’t – they weren’t worth much even before all this – like, if you’re being _objective_ –

Killing herself out of remorse would be so stupid. Such a waste.

And if she can kill all her friends and the world stays standing, then anyone else is going to be no problem at all.


	4. Shou Tsukioka

Shou had never been one of those people who got off on pain, either giving or receiving. Growing up with a father who runs a gay bar you see all sorts, but, let’s be honest here, a lot of what you _see_ is just costume and put-on. Not that that doesn’t make it _true_ , but the man in the leather corset and a collar often turns out to be a little dull and the games are just a harmless affectation for the bedroom. Or not. That’s a generalisation, really. The point is that Shou was never interested in the over-dramatic ultraviolence side of things, and whips and chains and candle wax seemed like over-egging the pudding. Fuck the right person and it didn’t matter what you did with them. Or, don’t even fuck them. Just follow. Just watch. Just enjoy that they don’t know you’re there. Be _subtle_ , mm? 

And the gang battles with dear Mitsuru and the others, well, that was just business. Plus a healthy dose of _get them before they get you_. Shou may be queer but he also grew up tall and broad-shouldered and better at breaking people’s arms than you might expect. Makes a certain style of drag difficult, makes getting in with the local juvenile delinquents very easy. 

And then the Program. 

And _then_.

He’s seen a lot of his classmates dead in the past twenty-four hours or so. Well, that’s what you get if you stick with Kazuo Kiriyama. Now, he wouldn’t have called himself squeamish, either, so he wasn’t surprised that seeing people get mown down by a machine gun didn’t bother him. As the day passed, though, and the sun rose and started to set, and Kazuo managed to give him the slip (naughty!) he started to… 

Well, isn’t it all about pushing the boundaries, when it comes down to it?

It’s nightfall and he’s on his own and he’s got an itch that needs scratching and it isn’t the nicotine withdrawal. 

In the dark and the silence and the chilly night air you start wanting something hot and wet and bloody to happen. Earlier – ah, yes, that must be it. Earlier it was the _watching_ again. Kazuo doing the killing and feeling nothing, Shou doing the watching and feeling everything. So, some kind of transference, maybe. It’s all about pushing the boundaries, it’s all about shock value. Even when it’s painfully obvious, then the irony of it being so crass becomes the point.

And it’s how pornography and fantasy work, isn’t it? You watch someone on a screen, say, getting blown in a pool hall (or something – this is just an example here), the next thing you know you have a fetish and you get hard every time you see green baize and sooner or later, you’re going to sneak in and get someone to chalk your cue. So if you’ve been spending a good few hours now watching your crush object slaughter everyone, his face not changing an iota, you’re going to start thinking about taking matters into your own hands. After all, how many are there left? Twenty-odd and too many of them straight as a die. Shou would never call himself _heterophobic_ , but, really, he’s hardly going to roll over and let the mainstream win. He’s still only got a double-shot derringer, but you can do a lot with two bullets. And, as always, the night is young. He’ll see where it takes him.


	5. Yoji Kuramoto

He told her to run.

He told her to run and she didn’t and so she must’ve wanted to die. 

He can see more of one of her eyeballs than you’re meant to and it makes her look like a… a mask. Or like she’s just… like she was only ever _bits_ , only ever pieces of stuff joined together. Not, not a real person at all. 

He told her to run. It wasn’t his fault. She should’ve seen he was freaking out.

Trouble with Yoshimi was she never saw anything about anyone.

Like she always swore up and down Hirono and Mitsuko were her best friends and they’d do anything for each other when anyone with half a brain could see those two were a pair of sharks who’d do anything for a bit of cash. Thinking about that makes him feel a bit – okay, not _better_ , but – like – like it’s not just him and Yoshimi and no one else, but, like… they were just two kids – in a big crowd and – Yoshimi had got hurt by a lot of people before him –

He can’t be thinking like this he _can’t be thinking like this_ he has to win he _has a future_ you can’t start feeling bad about what you do you can’t start thinking about it –

She just smiled up at him and said it was okay. He’d, he’d sort of thought a gang girl like her would’ve said something if stuff ever wasn’t okay. Like, that was why he’d been too chicken to ask her out for ages, because he’d figured not only would she shoot him down, she’d be mean about it. And then in the cinema she’d been looking so… 

She’d looked so sad and –

She should’ve _said_ something –

He has a future. He has a future. His parents never really liked Yoshimi even though he obviously didn’t tell them about her reputation and she always behaved so sweet and innocent around them, but they must’ve thought she looked like the kind of girl who. The kind of girl who. 

(But none of that was about _this_ , her and her smile and what she did with her tongue and the way she always laughed at the dirty jokes her friends told and him feeling so hot and stupid and not knowing anything, not knowing how to _do_ anything and positive she’d worked that out and was going to tell everyone –)

(None of that was about her lying dead in a forest with one eyeball falling out of her head and a weird stiffness to her smile and how can you have a future when things are like this, when you’ve seen this and you’re going to have to remember it forever?)

No.

No.

He’s sitting here crying – quickly he rubs a hand across his eyes and nose, even though if anyone was watching they’d probably have tried to kill him by now –

Swallows, takes a deep breath.

If you don’t know anything, you’d better sure as shit start finding out. That’s. That’s why he asked her out. Because she’s got the moves. That was it. (He should’ve stuck to that story when he was talking to her. Hell, he should’ve just shot her as soon as she gave him the gun. That’s what _someone with a future_ would do.)

Stands up.

He knows something now, he knows what it’s like to kill someone and – _better than sex,_ he tests out, in his mind, which it isn’t, but who’s gonna know? His problem before was not being able to fake it til you make it. He wants to kick some leaves over her but if he does that he’ll have to look at her, so he just grabs her kit bag and walks away. He doesn’t look back.


	6. Takako Chigusa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief, non-graphic mention of sexual assault in this chapter.

Takako doesn’t actually remember making the decision.

There was Niida, dead from falling onto a crossbow bolt sticking out of the ground. (Which makes it sound like he just tripped. He did _not_ just trip. Takako can still remember her arms aching as she slammed him down onto it. It’s important to remember that it wasn’t a _happy accident_. It’s important to remember that he beat her until she said what he wanted and then he tried to kill her and he probably would have raped her in her last moments and that she killed him instead. It’s important to remember that things can get as bad as can be and you can’t rely on _accidents_.)

There was Niida, and there was the crossbow bolt, and that made her think. She pushed herself up – the cut in her leg felt like it ripped itself open but she didn’t scream and she didn’t black out. Maybe because her head was throbbing and she felt slightly deaf, maybe she was half-blacked out already. 

She was on her feet and holding the crossbow and then she was rifling through Niida’s kitbag for any other of the short, heavy little bolts. Made her think of a nail gun. Pinning things to board. He could have made it even worse. There, things hadn’t got as bad as they could be, not even now. Her hands were shaking and she was watching them as she fumbled another bolt into place, ready to go. This was all on autopilot. No. This was her thoughts pared back to the essential concept that if anyone was going to be holding a weapon, it was going to be her. 

If she thought of Hiroki she felt like she was going to start crying. 

(If she thought of Niida hitting her in the face over and over and over, she felt like she was going to start screaming.)

She could hardly be a crybaby when it had always annoyed her so much in other people. 

And, what, she expected Hiroki to save her? As if what Niida had done had broken her down into someone who relied on _happy accidents_ (like Hiroki showing up right this second to tell her everything was okay and then somehow fix this entire awful situation)? She wasn’t going to think of him. She was going to think of herself because herself was all she had. 

This is what she was thinking about when she heard the twig snap and she whirled round and shot Mitsuko Souma through the head.

Some people might like to think that their finger had slipped, that it had been another _accident_. Or claimed that they hadn’t been thinking straight after what had happened to them. Or that Mitsuko had a reputation and they were paranoid.

Takako doesn’t know which it was.

If there’s one thing she hates it’s people who won’t take responsibility for their actions, or try and downplay what they’ve done to make themselves look good. She’s said as much, before. It’s why most of the girls she knows don’t hang out with her.

She can hear the words in her mouth, along with the blood, she can hear herself saying to Niida that she’s going to play. She can feel herself shoving him down. She can feel herself not feeling sorry. You don’t get just to take all that back, afterwards.

(Although, the crossbow bolt hitting Mitsuko in the forehead, that _was_ a happy accident, more than either of them deserve.)

Hiroki won’t understand this. He won’t be able to make that choice, when it comes down to it.

No, that’s not fair. He’ll make the choice, it’s just he’ll choose not to play, in case he _hurts_ someone, in case he _enjoys_ hurting, in case he does something he can’t take back.

Mitsuko has a gun in her hand.

Takako’s made all those choices already. The fewer people there are left, the fewer times Hiroki will have to choose. She’s probably not going to last long with the wound in her leg (and that’s assuming the other blows Niida landed on her won’t have repercussions later on). She might as well be as efficient as possible until then.


	7. Shinji Mimura

Yutaka’s run off into the darkness and Shinji does actually nearly yell, _Screw you, then!_ after him like they’re not in a fucking _death game_. Not that it’d matter, there’s been quite enough yelling already. And torchlight. And a gunshot –

(Not that he’s – not that he’s feeling _bothered_ about having shot Iijima, just he doesn’t want to stand round looking at someone’s brains spread all over the tarmac, so he’s keeping the – the body out of his field of vision)

Point is, attention’s been attracted – already was, could’ve been way worse than Iijima –

(Could it? Least if it’d been someone obviously hellbent on taking them down Yutaka wouldn’t have freaked out about justifiable self-defense)

_Point is_ , time’s a-wasting, other people might show up here any second, and Yutaka made his choice. Shinji’s not about to stand around waiting for him to stop throwing a strop. Zone F-7 goes danger in half an hour and that’ll include the time needed to set the rope and the kite up. 

Oh, he makes a decent stab at it. He slings a coil of rope from each shoulder and grabs up the bomb and books it into the woods. Runs as fast as you can when it’s pitch-black and you’re weighed down by the component parts of your escape plan and you need not to trip over a tree root and you’re on an island with all your classmates trying to kill you.

(Maybe Yutaka will’ve headed to F-7 too.)

(Or maybe he came back to the agricultural building and whoever showed up drawn by the lights and noise shot him.)

(He makes himself think a few times _Well, who gives a shit?_ until he almost believes it. Makes himself remember how – how goddamn _incompetent_ Yutaka’s been all evening. You can’t – you can’t start getting cold feet and – and second-guessing yourself. You have to just – just –)

He made a decent stab at it but he had to keep stopping to check the compass to make sure he was going the right way (and maybe he went more off-course than he would’ve done because he was too busy thinking _Who gives a shit_ and keeping running to make his footsteps underline the thought)

And (of course) everything’s twice as heavy when your friend ditched you to carry all the stuff alone.

His time runs out while he’s still in the woods, which at least means he can slump against a tree and catch his breath without making a target of his silhouette against the sky. His thoughts are going _fuck, fuck_ in time with his heartbeat but when he thinks about it, when he thinks about it he kind of knew that he wasn’t going to make it. He was onto a losing streak and you play as hard as you can but sometimes you can just feel it.

_So, what, that’s it? I give up?_

He’s not giving up but cut him some fucking slack, he’s had twenty-four hours without sleep and coming up with a _third_ escape plan is just a little goddamn difficult right now, okay –

It’s dark and quiet except for the rustle of wind in the trees, and the hiss of the sea, so maybe that’s why. Quiet enough that he can hear himself think, _Well. I mean. There’s another option._

Like… it isn’t like he hasn’t really tried to take the high road here. Someone who was playing would’ve offed Yutaka hours ago. Someone who was playing wouldn’t have broken a sweat about shooting Iijima, they certainly wouldn’t have got into a dumb shouting match that wasted precious time and fucked up their hope of escape. They’d probably just have shot Yutaka straight after to make him stop yelling.

And, how many people are left now? Less than half. Most people are dead already and that was nothing to do with him. (Trying not to think about Iijima. If you think about it, that makes it harder to do it again. If that’s what you’re going to end up doing.)

He’s just kidding around.

Of course he is. 

Sit and rest for a while, have some water, and another option will present itself. No way he’s going to be the good little government poster child, he could never play this game, blah, blah, blah. 

Just good to know what choices there are on the table, that’s all.


	8. Shogo Kawada

If Shogo was feeling anything right now, it’d probably be _kind of pissed off_.

Like, Keiko should know the drill. The game’s been going on a while now. Literally everyone but them is dead. Time for her to get used to the idea, is his point.

Except it’s not his point because he isn’t feeling anything, because everything’s still just kind of there, like every thought he has and every thing he does is laid out to look at under the floodlights they’ve got set up every so often in this place. 

Which is probably a side-effect of sleep deprivation and blood loss, but it’s been useful so far, so he’ll go with it.

But if he were feeling instead of just looking, he’d be wanting to ask her to cut him a fucking break already. He wants to say, _It’s the Program. **Everyone** probably killed someone. If they didn’t, it’s just ‘cause they died too early to get the chance._

Or he’d say, _So, how many’d you take down? Cards on the table. After all, you know my count._

Or start telling her exactly who he killed, like that’s a proportionate way of provoking an argument.

Be a raging asshole, basically. And she hasn’t told him that. How many she killed. Or didn’t kill. She hasn’t told him what she’s been doing these last two days. Either she found a really good hiding place, or she’s been keeping herself alive some other way. And he only killed a quarter of his competitors. Someone’s got to have racked up some notches of their own.

She just sits, huddled up in a blanket, on a battered couch in what was once a waiting area in a high-rise, and never stops looking at him.

Okay, the endgame of the Program is hardly Romance City, but he’d kind of figured maybe actually enjoying these last few hours spent with her before he nobly bows out.

But the not-feeling, he didn’t quite reckon on that. Well, if he’d thought about it, he’d have guessed, but he didn’t realise it would be this numbing. It feels like she could strip naked and climb on top of him right now and it would mean as much as her shaking and staring like he’s kidnapped her. That is, nothing. Or almost nothing.

Anyway. Mulling over your girlfriend’s mood is a dumb way to spend your last day. He’s seen terminally ill people before. They write wills and say goodbye to their grieving relatives and attain inner peace. 

Kidding. They waste away and beg for the pain to stop and cry and end up being nothing but a bag of bones with the disease living inside it. Contemplation ain’t a luxury.

He should’ve done it soon as they found each other and he’d made sure they were the only two, because the trouble with not feeling, or, no, the trouble with feeling the same about everything, the trouble with frostbite of the soul is each option is as tempting as each other and he keeps thinking, he keeps thinking –

She went for the gun right now, that’d make everything easier.

She’s not going to do that.

She could do that. A lot of people do things they wouldn’t expect. That Rie girl who nearly got the jump on them, who’s placed third? Horse-mad kid who giggled too much in class and never dodged her share of cleaning duty. You wouldn’t have figured her to be a contender but, like he was figuring about Keiko, she’s got to have killed at least a few.

And she was chewing through her lower lip and talking like she’d knocked back a bottle of vodka. And Keiko’s got a face on like a bird that flew into a window. And then there’s him, who’s fine. 

Just, _dying for love_? Not too fucking corny.

What made him think this was enough to either of them to make it worth that?

Doesn’t say anything, though. Nor does she. She keeps looking at him. Still, that won’t make it difficult. If that’s the choice he ends up making. Looking makes no difference.


End file.
